timme — timm, evolved

timme is an experimental refactor of timm that splits every image model into a reusable encoder and a separate head. It's a thin layer on top of timm — for now it reuses timm's blocks, layers, hub integration, and pretrained-weight infrastructure, while exposing a cleaner API for feature extraction, head swapping, and weight remapping.

Status: alpha / proof-of-concept. 9 model families wired (~109 variants). The shape of the public API is settling but not stable. Not production-ready.

Why

timm models are wonderful but each one is a monolithic nn.Module with forward_features + forward_head baked together. That makes a few things awkward:

• using a backbone for downstream tasks (detection, segmentation, dense prediction) requires hand-rolling head removal,
• swapping a head (token-pool vs avg-pool vs attention-pool, distillation, MAP) requires reaching into model internals,
• intermediate features (features_only=True) go through a separate FeatureListNet wrapper rather than the model itself.

timme says: every model is ImageClassifier(encoder, head) where encoder IS the features (no forward_features indirection) and head is a swappable, well-typed module. Pretrained weights load via a small per-family WeightLayout that splits old monolithic state dicts into encoder.* / head.*.

Install

pip install timme         # not yet on PyPI; for now:
pip install -e .          # from a clone

Runtime dependency: timm>=1.0, torch>=2.0.

Usage

Drop-in replacement for timm.create_model:

import timme

# Pretrained classifier — same names as timm
model = timme.create_model('resnet50.a1_in1k', pretrained=True)
model.eval()

# Logits match timm bit-for-bit
import torch, timm
x = torch.randn(1, 3, 224, 224)
y2 = model(x)
y1 = timm.create_model('resnet50.a1_in1k', pretrained=True).eval()(x)
assert torch.equal(y1, y2)

Encoder-only (replaces features_only=True):

encoder = timme.create_encoder('vit_base_patch16_224.augreg2_in21k_ft_in1k', pretrained=True)
features = encoder(x)                                 # (B, 197, 768) — NLC
encoder = timme.create_encoder('resnet50', pretrained=True, out_indices=(0, 1, 2, 3, 4))
stages = encoder(x)                                   # list of stage tensors

Swap heads or change num_classes / in_chans:

model = timme.create_model('resnet50.a1_in1k', pretrained=True, num_classes=10)
model = timme.create_model('resnet50.a1_in1k', pretrained=True, in_chans=1)

Training And Eval Apps

Native task-style apps live under timme.apps and are installed as console scripts. The intended naming is train_{task}.py and eval_{task}.py; today that means classification training/eval, SSL training, and k-NN representation eval.

# console scripts
timme-train-cls --data.path /data/imagenet --model.model resnet50
timme-train-ssl --data.path /data/imagenet --model.model vit_tiny_patch16_224 --ssl.ssl_method nepa
timme-eval-cls --data-dir /data/imagenet/validation --model resnet50 --pretrained
timme-eval-knn --data-dir /data/imagenet --model vit_tiny_patch16_224 --checkpoint /path/to/last.pth.tar

# equivalent module entry points, useful from a source checkout
python -m timme.apps.train_cls --data.path /data/imagenet --model.model resnet50
python -m timme.apps.eval_cls --data-dir /data/imagenet/validation --model resnet50 --pretrained

Classification training:

torchrun --nproc-per-node=8 -m timme.apps.train_cls \
  --data.path /data/imagenet \
  --model.model resnet50 \
  --model.pretrained true \
  --loader.batch_size 128 \
  --scheduler.epochs 100 \
  --device.amp true

Override the train defaults when needed:

timme-train-cls \
  --data.path /data/imagenet \
  --model.model convnext_tiny \
  --optimizer.lr 5e-4 \
  --optimizer.weight_decay 0.05 \
  --model.torchcompile inductor

Self-supervised training is encoder-native: timme-train-ssl builds a bare timme.create_encoder(...) via create_train_model(..., target='encoder'). The SSL tasks train representations directly, without a classifier wrapper/head.

# NEPA
timme-train-ssl \
  --data.path /data/imagenet \
  --model.model vit_tiny_patch16_224 \
  --ssl.ssl_method nepa \
  --scheduler.epochs 100 \
  --device.amp true

# LeJEPA multi-view training
timme-train-ssl \
  --data.path /data/imagenet \
  --model.model vit_small_patch16_224 \
  --ssl.ssl_method lejepa \
  --ssl.num_views 2 \
  --ssl.lejepa_lamb 0.02

Evaluate checkpoints:

timme-eval-cls \
  --data-dir /data/imagenet/validation \
  --model resnet50 \
  --checkpoint output/train/model_best.pth.tar

timme-eval-knn \
  --data-dir /data/imagenet \
  --model vit_tiny_patch16_224 \
  --checkpoint output/ssl/model_best.pth.tar \
  --k 1 5 20 100

timme-eval-knn also uses timme.create_encoder(...) and normalizes task, DDP, and torch.compile checkpoint wrapper keys before loading into the bare encoder. For DDP plus torch.compile, the apps apply distributed wrapping before task compilation; when gradient checkpointing is enabled, timme disables Dynamo's DDP optimizer guard path that is known to fail in recent PyTorch versions.

Config files are YAML dataclass trees with the same dotted keys as the CLI:

model:
  model: vit_tiny_patch16_224
data:
  path: /data/imagenet
loader:
  batch_size: 256
optimizer:
  opt: adamw
  lr: 3e-4
  weight_decay: 0.01
scheduler:
  epochs: 100
  warmup_epochs: 5
ssl:
  ssl_method: nepa

timme-train-ssl -c configs/nepa_vit.yaml --data.path /data/imagenet

What's implemented

Current model coverage is 120 variants across 9 families, all exact-matching timm pretrained weights:

family	example variants
ResNet	resnet18, resnet50, resnet101, resnet50d, seresnet50
ViT	vit_tiny/small/base/large_patch16_224/384, CLIP/DINOv2 variants
ConvNeXt	convnext_tiny/small/base/large, convnextv2_base
MobileNetV3	mobilenetv3_large_100, mobilenetv3_small_100
ByobNet	~70 variants — gernet, resnet51q, regnetz, eca_resnet, etc.
DeiT	deit_*, deit3_*, distilled deit_*_distilled_*
LeViT	levit_128/192/256/384, conv-mode variants
NaFlexViT	naflexvit_base/so150m2/so400m_patch16_* (gap, par_gap, map, siglip)
EVA / EVA02	eva_giant_patch14_*, eva02_*, CLIP, DINOv3 ViT variants

9 canonical heads cover the head-side variability (5 spatial for CNNs, 4 token for transformers). See ARCHITECTURE.md.

Native apps currently include:

• timme.apps.train_cls / timme-train-cls: classification, distillation, DDP, AMP, EMA, mixup/cutmix, update-step scheduling.
• timme.apps.eval_cls / timme-eval-cls: classifier validation.
• timme.apps.train_ssl / timme-train-ssl: encoder-native NEPA and LeJEPA training.
• timme.apps.eval_knn / timme-eval-knn: encoder-native k-NN representation eval.
• timme.apps.sweep / timme-sweep: lightweight config sweep runner.

What's not implemented yet

• The remaining ~80 timm families. Each one needs the same wiring: encoder class + WeightLayout + builder + register_family(...).
• Many advanced application scripts from timm/OpenCLIP are not ported yet. Classification and SSL task apps are the active native paths.
• Standalone hub story. timme reuses timm.models._registry for pretrained_cfg metadata and timm.models._builder.load_pretrained for downloads, so it depends on timm's hub integration today.
• Standalone layer primitives. timme.layers is a placeholder; blocks/norms/activations/attention pools are imported from timm.layers.

Roadmap

The plan is for timme to grow into a fully standalone replacement for timm. Near-term priorities:

1. More families — work through the rest of timm's model zoo, prioritizing actively-developed ones.
2. Vendor / fork shared layers as needed — the runtime dep on timm is fine for v0 but limits independent evolution.
3. More native apps — extend the task app base toward additional workflows.
4. Hub integration — read pretrained metadata from timme's own registry instead of borrowing timm's.

License

Apache-2.0. Built on timm (also Apache-2.0). See LICENSE.